a blog that reminds you: just stay calm. no need to sparkle.

Month: August 2007

I realized today that I love sentences. This afternoon I was eating seaweed salad and California rolls with chopsticks and reading Francine Prose’s Reading Like A Writer. And I remembered that one reason I love to read is the immersion in words, letting them wash over you and around you, like the librarian says in Roald Dahl’s Matilda. I love that Joe Meno says the moon was a coin at the bottom of a fountain. I love the way Annie Dillard describes a weasel’s jaw clamped on to the neck of an eagle. It’s the nerdiest fact I’ve yet realized about myself, this abiding love for sentences.

I don’t usually blog while drunk. Ok, so this is not the best idea. Lindsya, why are you blogging while drunk? But then the muse answers, whatever! And so the hippie muse wins. Essentially I am saying this: I’m moving to another apartment in Andersonville. I’m moving in with Kevin. And so. I am greatly happy and excited to start new chapters and new leafs and new loaves (fresh baked!) of life. It means packing and lugging boxes and ridiculous inconvenience. But I overlook this. Because I’ve never done this before, this live-with-your-love thing, and mayybe it will suck and maybe it will be beautiful but either way it’s a time to step back and breathe deep and take a moment to wonder at how people find each other (A) connect with each other (B) and then actually put up with eeach other long enough to see whether they make any kind of sense. (C).

(I haven’t been drunk in weeks! Somehow I forgot that my face gets numb. And I start hitting it to make sure it’s still numb. I blam ethis whole thing on Becca, who bestowed upon me a bottle o’ wine for picking her up from the airport. Becca. Good job.)

Sometimes a single conversation can rattle around in my head for hours after the talking is done. Today I talked to my friend Dean about how artists need 10 years to learn their craft and another 10 to get good at it. If this is true, and I’m almost 27, I will be nearly 50 years old before I’m good at writing. On the one hand, all right, sounds like a plan — I can wait until I’m 50. On the other hand, people tell you that you should live like you’re dying. So in that case, why bother? I’ll suck until I’m 50 and might not even make it to that age. Then I stop and think that this sounds like pointless whining and the point is to get better at what you do. People who know about MFA programs generally tell you that you can’t expect much, career-wise, from an MFA. You can just expect to get better at your art. Then after I think about that, I think — why be better at something if it doesn’t impact others, leave a dent somewhere, or a carving — in the bark of an imagined oak tree or in the door of a bathroom stall, maybe in Winnetka? I am not sure.

-The lyrics to “You’re Beautiful” scrawled in sidewalk chalk, stretching for blocks and blocks on the way to the el
-Rows of chickens roasting vertically in a window, like those roasted chickens in old cartoons that dance.
-The same people over and over – the owner of my favorite cafe lives across the street from me, the founder of the poetry slam movement lives down the block
-People I’ve seen before: Katherine, Caleb’s new flame, was in a women’s studies class with me freshman year of college
-A calico cat slouching through an alley, making me wonder where it lives and what I would do if I felt compelled to rescue such a cat, since I am so allergic to them
-Abandoned furniture that looks better from far away — do we need a red pegboard or a broken rattan chair?